Toronto. The Canadian government on Wednesday directed Chinese company-owned video app TikTok to close its offices in the country due to national security risks. However, this app, which is extremely popular around the world, will still be available for use by people in Canada.
Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the decision, based on advice from Canada's security and intelligence community, was intended to address the risks posed by TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance. He said Canadian law provides for additional official scrutiny of foreign investments that could jeopardize national security.
TikTok said it intends to challenge this order in court. “Closing TikTok's Canadian offices and destroying hundreds of good-paying local jobs is not in anyone's interest, and today's shutdown order will do just that,” the company said. According to postings on LinkedIn and other online sources, the Toronto and Vancouver offices were staffed by employees who sold advertising and worked on the app.
TikTok was completely banned in the United States in January due to concerns about security, data privacy and misinformation. As TikTok's influence on young people has become undeniable, lawmakers in Washington have expressed concerns that China could use the app to promote misinformation. They also worry that the app could share sensitive user data like location and browsing history with the Chinese government.
These concerns and others have prompted governments around the world to investigate TikTok. The governments of Britain, Australia, France and Taiwan, as well as the executive branch of the European Union and the Parliament of New Zealand, have banned the app from official devices. India banned the app in 2020 following geopolitical disputes with China.
Canada banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices last year. But the app remains one of the most popular in Canada, where it has been downloaded about 700,000 times per month in recent months, according to data from SimilarWeb, a firm that tracks web traffic.
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